


Body Electric

by ZaliaChimera



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: AI sex, Affection, Artificial Intelligence, Consensual Sex, Fluff and Smut, Hugs, M/M, Mind Sex, Porn, Porn with Feelings, Reconciliation, Sex, Snark, mental sex, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 21:43:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10930611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaliaChimera/pseuds/ZaliaChimera
Summary: Epsilon and Washington have never really been able to talk, but they sure as hell can feel and Epsilon is determined to use that to make up for everything that he can't say.





	Body Electric

**Author's Note:**

> A mostly fluffy, entirely consensual bout of sex between Epsilon and Wash. Epsilon is still an AI and playing with the human body that way is fun.

“I can feel you getting impatient,” Carolina says.

Epsilon projects his hologram, shoulders slumped and he kicks his feet awkwardly. “Sorry C.”

He can feel the warm curl of her amusement, even if he can’t see her face when she’s wearing the helmet. “It’s alright Epsilon. Go ahead.”

“You sure?” He doesn’t like leaving her. It feels awkward when he’s her AI. It’s just…

“I’m sure. You’re distracting me anyway.”

He lets out a huff of breath that is entirely synthetic. “Oh no, you might actually make one wrong step while doing drills.”

“Epsilon…” is her response and she’s amused. Mostly amused.

Well, never let it be said that he doesn’t know when it’s his cue to leave. He gives her one last mental pat, a brush of affection, and untangles himself from neurones and synapses, then hurls himself into the the base’s computer system. It’s always an odd change, slipping from the organic complexity of a human mind, to the linear organisation of a computer system. Human minds are faster technically, electrical impulses firing at speeds he can’t even calculate, but they’re bogged down by actual conscious thought. In contrast, computer systems are cleaner, less likely to get clogged by the fractured memory that something as simple as a song can bring, but they lack warmth.

Besides, he has a certain appreciation for fractured memories.

Wash is curled up on his bed when Epsilon gets there. It had taken a few seconds; he’d been dawdling, suddenly overwhelmed by doubt that maybe this time is when it all crashes down, when this fragile _thing_ between them shatters and they’re back where they were, intimate strangers who can barely stand to be around each other even if…

…oh fuck, he’s missed Wash. A deep ache that he hadn’t noticed until he’d realised that it could be filled.

He sinks into the circuits of Wash’s armour and casts a hologram onto the bed. He gets the barest flicker of feedback from his implants, enough to know that he’s dozing, hovering on the cusp of sleep but ready to wake at a moment’s notice. His sleep patterns are so fucked by this point that Epsilon thinks the shock of getting a real night’s sleep might actually kill him.

He’s reaching out before he quite realises what he’s doing, and then draws back sharply, condensed into that one spot of blue light. It’s rule. They have those this time. Boundaries and shit. Don’t jump into Wash’s head without asking is pretty much rule numbers 1 to 5 and Epsilon is too invested in this… whatever it is, to risk it for the sake of a moment of curiosity.

Wash’s lips are downturned, his face mushed against the pillow. Epsilon is close enough that he could reach out and touch his cheek, y’know, if he had actual hands and shit, not just scattered light and access to the electrical system of the entire base.

He itches to, though. He’s never had that, not real physical sensation. Alpha had, he knows because he absorbed every scrap of information he could about Freelancer and damn what happened is fucked up. He’s just… curious. Robot bodies and alien artefacts don’t provide much in the way of haptic feedback.

“Wash?”

There’s no response so Epsilon tries again.

“Hey! Washington!”

He makes this rumbly little sound as he rolls over, uncurls and opens his eyes to blink blearily at Epsilon. His brow furrows, and for a moment he looks very confused, lost in the twisted threads of memory. 

“Epsilon? Wha-“

He squeezes his eyes shut. His lips are moving noiselessly but Epsilon can guess what he’s saying. So he waits. Waits until Wash’s fingers unclench from the bunched up blanket, until his forehead smooths and he opens his eyes again.

“Chorus.”

“Yeah,” Epsilon confirms. “Carolina was busy or I’d’ve got here sooner.” 

Wash nods and drags a hand over his face, shoving sweaty hair away from his forehead. His heart rate is elevated, but it slows gradually, and Epsilon sits on the edge of the bed, kicking his feet just to give the impression that he isn’t also buried balls deep in the base’s network. There is way more porn than anyone needs to know about.

Wash pulls himself together piece by piece, wraps himself in layers of control as thoroughly as pulling on armour. Finally he pushes himself into a sitting position, back pressed against the concrete wall. 

“Sorry,” he says, still sounding a little groggy. “If she was busy you didn’t need to come.” 

It’s an out, Epsilon has come to realise. Give Epsilon a way to back out with a ‘oh hey, C is calling’. On good days, it’s an option for a no-fault rejection. On the bad days, it’s almost a dare. 

“Nah,” Epsilon says, and shrugs. “We’re good.”

“Do you want to…” Wash waves a hand vaguely in the general vicinity of his head. All this and they still can’t fucking talk about it like normal people, but what about them has ever been normal?

“You okay with that?” He tries to sound nonchalant, to keep the eagerness out of his voice. He doesn’t want to push, but everything he is buzzes with excitement at the thought in a way that is entirely different to how he feels about Carolina. 

Wash nods, manages a half smile. “Yeah. Jump in.”

Epsilon hurls himself into Wash’s implants. He tucks himself in, tries to smooth off his jagged edges, and then settles himself into the ridges of Wash’s mind. 

Where Carolina’s mind is home by now, the two of them worn smooth against each other over time, Wash’s is like returning to a familiar place after years away. There’s a thrill to it, to curling himself around Wash’s mind, feeling the edges where they don’t quite fit, but knowing that they could, they might have, that maybe they will again, with time. 

He’s better at this than he was the first time, new formed and screaming. Knows where to slide code between thought, how to hold himself back so they can both feel without losing themselves. The temptation is there, god, it’s there, to lose himself, to bury himself so deeply that there’s no difference between them and no chance that they can ever be separated again, it’s them, just them, how it should have been and…

“Epsilon…” Wash’s voice quells a little of that desperate need in him and he pulls back, radiating guilt and apology and god, please don’t make him go, please not yet!

“I’m not going to make you go,” Wash says, although it’s more in feelings than words, “just… go easy, okay?”

Go easy. He can go easy, now that the first blazing rush of exhilaration and relief is smoothing out into a feeling of completeness. He thinks part of that is finding the places where he matches up with the pieces he left behind, but most of it is Wash. He feels the matching sentiment in Wash’s mind, a release of tension that’s a permanent undercurrent for both of them. 

Wash’s mind is still a mess. Epsilon thinks that it always will be. A chaotic wreckage of crossed wires and scar tissue. And he knows it worries Wash sometimes. Worries Epsilon too. Sometimes it’s hit and miss what he forgets, and what is burned indelibly into his memory.

He’d offered to try to fix it once, back at the start when they’d first started talking again. Wash hadn’t spoken to him for a week after that and a week is pretty much an eternity for an AI. Even now he keeps thinking how he could probably just… shift this bit of rubble, fuse those wires together, and he could make things _better_ and Wash would probably never know but…

But he pulls back and focuses on what he can already feel instead. Wash’s breathing has evened out along with his heart rate and somehow, despite basically being held together with scar tissue and spite, Wash is in peak health. Epsilon secretly thinks that he might actually be some kind of UNSC experiment, the amount of shit he’s survived that should have killed him. Him and Carolina both. 

“Glad you approve,” Wash says, his amusement a warm curl against Epsilon. 

“Just because I do not have a body, doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate yours.”

“Apparently so.”

“Really.” He shows Wash then, lets his grip slip slowly until Wash can see exactly what Epsilon does. It isn’t sight, not really, more an amalgam of images and memory and sheer, raw emotion; Wash as he is now, strong and protective and healing, Wash screaming with him and for him, raw and broken. Wash in the snow, hard as stone.   
The Wash he’d imagined in the few clear moments before they’d ever met. An idealised hero who would make it _stop_. His partner, his… _his_.

Oh, and there it is. The first flush of arousal bleeding between them thick and heavy like syrup. Epsilon could drown in it. Wants to. Wants to lose himself in the feeling, in the way Wash gasps, the way his pulse races with more than fear and battle-adrenaline. 

Epsilon can feel it too. The heavy beat of something he’s never had, like it’s inside his own chest. He whimpers with the feeling, and that echoes back through Wash. They’re close enough now that Epsilon feels the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck rise, the stutter of his breath, and, more distantly, the hum of nerves, the endless flow of blood and hormones. It’s intoxicating.

“Can I…” he begins.

Wash’s answer comes immediately in a rush of need. For a moment Epsilon is Wash, pressed so close that he can’t tell where they begin or end, and he can feel everything. 

It isn’t a hard thing to reach out and tangle himself in the lightning web of nerves. It’s part of what he is designed to do; improve reactions, fool the body into doing things it shouldn’t be able to. This is just a little more creative, and a lot more fun.

He presses down until he feels Wash suck in a breath at the sensation of a phantom hand running down over that lovely chest of his. 

“Close your eyes,” he murmurs, and couples it with a brush against Wash’s neck. 

Wash does so, a smile curling his lips. He lies back down, sprawled loose and easy on the bed. Epsilon marvels at it, the trust Wash is showing him. Wants to burn it into every line of code. He remembers how it was, and he’d never thought that he would have this, not after everything. He doesn’t deserve it, but he sure as fuck isn’t going to waste it either.

With Wash’s eyes closed, it’s easier to trick his mind. Epsilon takes his time with it, building the fantasy layer by careful layer, engrossing enough that Wash can believe that he’s really there, but light enough that he can shake it off if he wants it gone. 

And then Epsilon touches him. He roams hands down Wash’s sides, along the curve of ribs, just a shade shy of being ticklish. In return he feels Wash suck in a breath which tightens his stomach, a whole chain reaction of muscle and sinew and electrical impulses and Epsilon swells with pride. He caused this, he caused it and Wash is enjoying it. 

Wash’s cock is half hard already, and he squirms on the bed when Epsilon drags phantom fingers along the length.

“That tickles,” he says. Epsilon huffs a laugh and does it again, gratified when Wash actually tries to bat him away.

“Big scary Freelancer can’t take a little teasing huh?” he croons, and Wash’s laugh reverberates through his entire body.

“Try me.”

Is that a challenge? It’s definitely a challenge, and maybe Carolina has been rubbing off on him because there’s no way he’s backing down.

It takes a little more concentration to spread himself out, to sprawl throughout Wash’s nervous system rather than focusing on one specific point. He’s damned if he’s gonna let that stop him though. All the time, he can feel Wash’s warm affection though, his curiosity , and the flicker of excitement when he realises what Epsilon is doing.

“Oh god…”

“Damn right,” Epsilon says, and doesn’t bother to pretend that he isn’t smug as hell. Try finding someone else who can touch him everywhere at once, lips against his neck, against his chest, teasing hands between his legs. But he keeps them light, ghostly touches with just enough pressure for Wash to feel and no more.

And Wash reacts beautifully. He arches up off the bed, cock fully hard now, toes curled against the bed. Epsilon can feel the flex and tense of lovely muscle, the scrape of cheap cotton sheets against skin, the throb of blood and racing heartbeat.

“Getting a little hot and bothered there,, huh Wash,” Epsilon says. He teases at the nerves at the tip of Wash’s cock until he whimpers. It’s a sound that would take Epsilon’s breath away, but the best he can manage is a sort of shiver that works through Wash’s mental space and he hopes that conveys the idea. 

“Epsilon…” Wash’s voice sounds strained, even in his own head. Epsilon wishes there was more that he could do, would love to kiss him senseless. There’s a lot that he wishes he could do.

“I’ve got you,” he promises, and maybe the fierceness in his tone isn’t entirely appropriate for the situation but… but he didn’t get to protect Wash back then. At least he can take care of him now. 

Wash is wound up tight by now, thoughts narrowing down to a single point, that single point being his dick. Epsilon doesn’t quite have that luxury, is till vaguely aware of the hum of electricity, the tabs he’s keeping on security systems. It’s one of the perks and downsides of being everywhere at once that it’s hard so, hard to focus on the here and now. But he pushes as much of it away as he can, sinks deeper, loses himself in Wash’s body, in his reactions, in the haze of pleasure and need which clouds his brain.

Hormones are fucking awesome.

He catches the twitch of Wash’s fingers just before he starts to move, and simulates the feeling of his wrists being pressed down. “Not yet,” he says, “I’ve got you, just a bit longer.” 

Doesn’t ask if Wash trusts him. No way he’s going there. Doesn’t want to hear it, assuming Wash could even answer. He’s a little incoherent and Epsilon gets a thrill from it, that pride for having reduced Wash to whines and moans in the best of ways, like if he can overwhelm him with pleasure it’ll somehow make up for what came before, even a tiny bit.

“Please, Epsilon…” 

There’s something pleading in Wash’s voice, and Epsilon relents. His touches this time, the way he presses and play on the nerves, are firmer, a hand wrapped ‘round Wash’s cock, dragging up long firm strokes. Wash groans, long and low. Epsilon could listen to that sound forever, locks the memory away somewhere safe, hoarding it greedily along with the flush of Wash’s skin, the curve of his spine, the look on his face that’s half bliss, half torment.

He’s close. Epsilon feels it building in the pit of Wash’s stomach, heat spreading through him. He lets it build up until Wash is fit to bursting. Epsilon thinks he’d like to try it sometime, get Wash to jerk off while he rides his nervous system, but for now…

Orgasm hits like a wave, a flood of oxytocin and endorphins which drags Epsilon away from Wash’s nerves and leaves him riding it out. For a moment, one split second, there’s nothing between them, they’re not two distinct minds, just one gestalt creature of mindless pleasure and sensation. 

The separation is a gradual thing, entirely unlike that first parting years ago, being torn apart screaming and broken. This is a slow unfurling of returned senses. They’re still linked, like a tangle of limbs, legs entwined. Epsilon basks in the reflection of Wash’s pleasure.

“You’re humming,” Wash says softly, voice thick with amusement.

“Mmmm?” 

Wash laughs and Epsilon feels it right through his core. Wash has a great laugh when he wants to use it and so maybe he’s smitten. So sue him. Feelings have never been things that he’s done in half measures.

“Was fucking awesome though, right?” he says eventually, when thinking becomes an option again. “One day ‘m gonna figure out how to blow you and then… then you’re gonna lose your fucking mind.”

He realises what he’s said a millisecond after he says it. That’s always the way isn’t it? And there’s a moment when Wash goes tense and still, a hitch in the way his thoughts work, like a glitch in a computer. Carolina doesn’t do that, not exactly, not the same, and he isn’t sure if that’s just because of who she is, or if it’s another remnant of how much he fucked up Wash’s mind, left bits of inhuman code there to grow into him. 

“We’ll have to try that then,” is what Wash says though. Now he’s conscious, Epsilon can feel walls building up and doors closing, layers of armour being dragged on once more. But this at least is honest. He means it, and Epsilon feels a swell of gratitude and affection and all sorts of things that he’s not entirely convinced he’s capable of feeling but they’re there anyway and he’s not comfortable enough to start examining them. 

“‘Course we will. i am irresistible.”

“Didn’t realise you’d been taking pickup lines from Tucker.”

“Tucker wishes he was as awesome as I am,” Epsilon says. “You uh… you gonna clean up?” It doesn’t bother him exactly, but people tend to find being sticky unpleasant.

“Maybe later,” Wash replies, “don’t want to move.”

“Oh. Well, I can… head off…” Epsilon begins, and the doubt is back. It’s not as though he wouldn’t make the universe’s best sex toy but… 

“You don’t have to,” and there’s a tug, an answering need in Wash’s thoughts. In the end, neither of them was built to be alone. 

Epsilon settles back, curls around Wash’s mind, a blanket and firewall all at once. “Guess I can stay for a while then.”

“Don’t do me any favours,” Wash says dryly. he settles back down on the bed, curled on his side. Exhaustion creeping up on him. Seems lonely.

Epsilon lets himself reach for nerves once more, delicately touches them, twists until impulses flow the way he wants them to.

Wash lets out a soft sigh as arms seem to wrap around him, holding him close and warm.


End file.
